Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

One last one for Gunz.

I would love to fly. I do in my dreams all the time. I think it's a great way to see the world and a great way to escape danger. I may incorporate flight when fleeing the zombies. Yeah! I could also use it to rescue people from burning buildings, raging rivers, zombies etc.

Last edited by Pixiessp; 08-02-2009 at 09:01 PM.

Originally Posted by insbordnat

If you're in a relationship that causes Ancestry.com to crash, it's probably inappropriate.

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

Your friend from out-of-state is visiting NY for 24 hours. You have a budget of up to $10k. With practically no budgetary concerns, you've been assigned with providing your friend with the quintesential NY experience. Tell us where you take them, what they see and do, where you eat. Of course, there's no one quintessential NY experience, so give us your NY.

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

Originally Posted by Pixiessp

Stuporfly,

Describe your perfect day. From the very moment you open your fly eyes to the moment you lie your little fly head on your pillow.
Details, Details,Details!!!!!

I can't start my day without first lighting a ridiculously massive cigar with a thousand dollar bill. After finishing at least half of the cigar, I stub it out in my ashtray, a gold-dipped koala's head. Then, five trained gerbils both select my clothes and help me to get dressed.

After taking a dump on my front lawn, I let any one of a hundred neighborhood dogs lick me clean...

The real, (mostly mundane) response would go more like this...

I wake up beside my girlfriend in our Brooklyn apartment. The sun is shining, though unlike lately there's a bite in the air and stepping outside doesn't feel as though I'm trapped in someone's mouth.

My daughter is with us, and as we make our way through neighborhood after neighborhood, she forgets about the part where she kvetches about having to try food she's never eaten and goes right on to the part where she realizes it's actually pretty good.

The day involves a stroll through Broopklyn Flea, where I try in vain to return a sweet pair of Rod Laver kicks to a vendor because the size on the tag was wrong and they have me hideous blisters. And then I'll leave the shoes on the sidewalk somewhere for some other fool, like the monkey's paw. Anyway, they had a pubic hair in them when I bought them for 15 bucks.

A concert at Prospect Park or thr Williamsburg Waterfront (which is kinda gross, though has a nice view of Manhattan) would be a good way to finish the day. We'd invite a couple who have a son Madeline's age, and they're friends, so it would be fun for all.

Oh, and after we got home and the kid was in bed, naked adult fun time would begin!

I was treated far too well when covering a show early in what passes as my music writing career, and it ruined me for all other experiences. I should be satisfied with getting in to a lot of great shows for free, but I'm kind of an asshole, so nothing is ever good enough for me.

Fave chant - During college, I was once trailed around Boston by three religious enthusiasts with shaved heads and flowing robes because I made the crucial mistake of telling them I'd heard their chant on an episode of the Monkees. So I've got a least favorite chant, but not a favorite one. -I'll give this one a bit more thought.

Fave camp song - I mostly went to day camp growing up, so I didn't get too many camp songs in my head. One year in JCC camp, we went away for a week, though I mostly remember that week for scary stories and meeting most of the '78 Yankees, as Graig Nettles' son was in my group.

There was a kid on the trip that year named David. He was like Rain Man, and he remembered every single line from Magical Mystery Tour. Not the album, either - The entire movie. Not sure how that happened, but it did.

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

Sharing a first name with Crispin Glover sometimes makes people think I'm going to be just as quirky and weird as he is, but I'm afraid that's not the case.

I've enjoyed some roles played by Glover, most notably the one in the picture provided. But at the risk of alienating a younger version of myself (one who desperately gave a shit about indie cred), I think his album was a bore.

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

What's the strangest thing you or someone you've been with has said in the sack?

"I can't believe I'm fucking Matthew Broderick!"

When I was 14 and 15, I spent around a year going on theater and commercial auditions set up by a fairly useless agent. It probablyt didn't help that I wasn't much good, of course.

This agent thought I looked enough like Matthew Broderick (I didn't) to send me on an audition for a production of 'Brighton Beach Memoirs' that was going to travel through Alaska for a month. I didn't get the part, but I did meet a fellow thespian while going over my sides, and we hit it off. She was pretty, with long dark hair and perfect small breasts. She also had parents who thought nothing of leaving their precocious daughter behind while they went out of town for the weekend.

We met at her apartment, fooled around for a while, then fumbled our way out of our clothes. About 30 seconds into making the beast with two backs, she said those fateful words. I'm pleased to report I was able to keep my focus and finish the task at hand to the best of my almost total lack of ability.

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

You have posted many photos of your childhood, I feel like I know what you looked like as a child better than I know what my parents looked like as children.

Where did you grow up? Were you a happy kid, or were you always anxious to grow up and be an adult? Did you have any siblings, and if so, what were they like growing up?

Yr pal,

pancakespancakespancakespancakes

I was born in Chicago, but my parents moved back east before I turned one. After they divorced, I split my time between NYC and Teaneck, New Jersey. My father moved out to Santa Monica when I was seven, so southern California also became part of the picture.

I was mostly happy, though I was probably kind of a pussy, too. It would be nice to pretend it was introspection or sensitivity, but I think I was just a wuss.

I've got a sister five years younger than me, and while we get along, we're also quite different. She's avoided city living, while I've always embraced it, for example. I think there's a basic philosophical difference there, anyway.

I was probably a standard older brother, obnoxious one minute and protective the next. My sister is getting married for the first time in just under three weeks, and as recently as her prior boyfriend I was offering to throw a blanket party when the dude treated her like shit. I'm not a violent fellow in the least, but I sure considered it then.

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

seeing as how you're already walking down memory lane, tell us about how your taste in music has evolved over the years. Did anyone influence what you listened to? What bands changed the way you approached listening to music?

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

Originally Posted by algunz

Stupor, what are your regular hang outs in the city? And which is your preferred concert venue?

The answer to both has changed more than once, though I'll have a bash.

I'm a big fan of Motor City Bar on Ludlow in Manhattan. Reasonably priced drinks, authentically gritty atmosphere and a lot of fantastic soul and garage rock in the air. It's one place I always recommend when I've got something happening on the Lower East Side, though there are certainly other spots nearby that are worth a look.

I used to spend a lot of time around St. Mark's Place when a friend lived over there in a crazy rent-controlled apartment, and the Continental and Coney Island High were good for a laugh.

I'm only just getting to know Brooklyn more intimately, which is sort of criminal. I've spent most of my life in New York in Manhattan, so until I met my girlfriend, I didn't get to the other boroughs nearly often enough. But I'm moving in with her in November, so I'll have all new hangouts in Greenpoint and Williamsburg.

I've had a good time in places like the Bowery Ballroom for their relative intimacy (at least with internationally known acts - there are smaller venues I adore where local and small indie bands hit up), but I also enjoy Webster Hall. I don't know why - The sound isn't always good, but I've been seeing shows there since high school (when it was The Ritz), so I have a fondness for it all the same.

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

Originally Posted by gaypalmsprings

What are you most talented at?

I've certainly got nothing on the fly, but I'm not completely hopeless.

My thread posts aren't any indication, but I'm a pretty decent writer. I've been able to make a living at it for some time, and I'm finishing up a novel within the next two months I think has a shot at being published. I plan on hitting up every contact I've ever made when I've got it polished enough to show around.

I think I'm an excellent father. I'm certainly not perfect, but I'm trying hard each day to be everything my daughter needs from me to grow up into a good person. I never imagined myself as the parental sort, but that all changed the minute I saw her.

I'm not a great drummer by any stretch, though I love to play and have a certain enthusiasm that generally hides my shortcomings.

There are other things I'm quite good at, but I'm not at liberty to divulge those.

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

I've proven far more durable than I'd have ever imagined. I don't know how close I came to death during any of these, but the stories sure loom large at family functions.

- I was on my mother's lap in the front seat of the car on the way to the museum when I was a baby. It was completely unsafe, though child safety wasn't what it is today that early in the '70s. We were rear-ended by a cab and the momentum carried me until I hit the windshield. I didn't sustain too much damage that time around.

- Some time in the next year, my parents were on a bicycle outing, and I was riding along in a child seat with my father. The two of them went down on a hill covered in gravel, and I once again flew through the air. They saw bloodpouring from my mouth and thought I was dead, but it turned out I'd just bitten my lower lip (I still have a scar on the inside, and it makes my lips fuller and more kissable). I was fine, but the two of them were apparently bandaged up like a pair of mummies from an Abbot and Costello flick.

- This one probably came the closest to being a near-death experience. When I was 14, my dumb buddies and I thought it would be fun to chase each other around with BB guns.

Agreeing on a single pump to ensure a hit would only sting a little was apparently not enough for one of my best friends, as he first broke the rule, and then broke the skin. I was running along a completely quiet street when I saw a flash of red and fell on my back. I'd been shot just below my right eye.

Thinking/hoping it just hit and popped out, I went home and told my mother I'd been scratched by a tree branch. She didn't buy it and took me to our doctor who told her it was nothing to worry about. Fortunately she sought a second opinion and our next stop was the emergency room. An x-ray confirmed it - The BB entered my eye socket a fraction of an inch below my eye. Any higher and I'd have been blind. Any deeper and it could have gone into my brain (or so the doctor said). He added that allowing it to stay there overnight couldhave caused it to move, possibly killing or paralyzing me. It's conceivable some of that was meant to scare me into running around with a BB gun, though he sounded as though he knew what he was talking about.

A specialist arrived by helicopter, and he used some sort of magnetic device to get the BB out. I still remember it hitting the bottom of a glass and rolling around as he turned off the device.

I was rather lucky, walking away with a few stitches and a scar that has since disappeared.

Faded x-ray with the BB in my right eye socket

Near death? Perhaps. But I'd have deserved that one.

I can't do a front or back flip. I don't think I'm terribly graceful or athletic, despite my mother's belief that I'd turn into a ballet dancer one day.

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

When I was 14 and 15, I spent around a year going on theater and commercial auditions set up by a fairly useless agent. It probablyt didn't help that I wasn't much good, of course.

This agent thought I looked enough like Matthew Broderick (I didn't) to send me on an audition for a production of 'Brighton Beach Memoirs' that was going to travel through Alaska for a month. I didn't get the part, but I did meet a fellow thespian while going over my sides, and we hit it off. She was pretty, with long dark hair and perfect small breasts. She also had parents who thought nothing of leaving their precocious daughter behind while they went out of town for the weekend.

We met at her apartment, fooled around for a while, then fumbled our way out of our clothes. About 30 seconds into making the beast with two backs, she said those fateful words. I'm pleased to report I was able to keep my focus and finish the task at hand to the best of my almost total lack of ability.

the fact that she finished the whole sentence before you finished is impressive enough...

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

Originally Posted by JewFace

Your friend from out-of-state is visiting NY for 24 hours. You have a budget of up to $10k. With practically no budgetary concerns, you've been assigned with providing your friend with the quintesential NY experience. Tell us where you take them, what they see and do, where you eat. Of course, there's no one quintessential NY experience, so give us your NY.

I've been giving this a lot of thought, but I've never had a budget like that, so it wouldn't be the quintessential NYC experience as I've ever known it.

However, that kind of bread would allow us to at the very least travel in style. (Actually, subway and cab would be the way to go, so we can cut down on the cash output tremendously - More for booze!)

New York's history is so fantastic, and even though it might sound corny, I like to take out-of-towners to at least one of three tourist destinations: The Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park.

If it's 24 hours, I'd start the day in Williamsburg with breakfast at Jimmy's Diner (also known as Little Jimmy's). Free donuts, crazy tater tots and a wide range of breakfast choices which are hearty and delicious. They're also kind of rich, so a nap en route to wherever our next destination is might be necessary.

As lunch rolled around, we'd head into Jackson Heights for Indian food. My second date with my girlfriend involved such an endeavor, and it was a hit. Unless she was with me and was able to recommend a specific joint, I'd be comfortable picking almost at random, there's so many good options.

- I'll have to get back to this later on. My brain is a little fried, and I want to finish this right. It'll head into Manhattan next...I think.

Re: Get to know your fellow board members....

I've rather liked films by all of the above (well, I'm probably going to wind up seeing Julie & Julia), but I'm going to have to go with Woody Allen.

My mother had two small black & white photographs on her bedroom mirror when I was growing up: Mick Jagger and Woody Allen.

The idealized version of New York I was most familiar with was found in Allen's work. I grew up a liberal New York Jew, with highfalutin dinner conversations about Very Important Things like art and cinema and politics. I know it's trite, but that opening montage of Manhattan still knocks me out whenever I see it.

I still see his movies, even when I know they're probably gonna stink. I can't help myself.